Birthday bashes for Johnny Doc and friends cost Local 98 more than $7,000, prosecutors say at trial

Of all the meals that prosecutors say John Dougherty and his codefendants bought on his union’s dime, a series of summer 2015 birthday dinners was the priciest — and, for Dougherty, perhaps the most personally complicated.

Government lawyers walked jurors through that $7,000 birthday bonanza on Thursday — the fifth day of the former labor leader’s federal embezzlement trial — laying out a four-month span that saw Dougherty feting both his wife and his mistress at separate Atlantic City shindigs within weeks of each other.

In each case, they said, Local 98 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, the union Dougherty led for nearly 30 years, unwittingly picked up the tab.

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The celebration spree kicked off in May of that year with a $1,380 dinner for Dougherty’s 55th birthday at the Old Homestead Steakhouse in the Borgata Hotel and Casino.

That event, according to records prosecutors showed the jury, was paid for with an American Express card the union had issued to Local 98 political director Marita Crawford, with whom Dougherty has acknowledged he was having an affair at the time.

She billed the union for the dinner, describing it on her expense reports as a “political campaign meeting.” He called the day after to thank her.

“I just wanted to thank you for everything,” he told her in a call caught on an FBI wiretap. “I loved the cake. … It’s pretty obvious I care about you, and it’s pretty obvious you care about me.”

Two months after that bash, it was Dougherty’s turn to return the favor. They returned to Old Homestead for Crawford’s birthday in July 2015 — with a banquet for two dozen people totaling nearly $4,000.

Dougherty, who paid on his union credit card, described it as a “Local 98 Marketing/Business Development Golf Outing,” according to records prosecutors presented in court.

He switched venues, though, when it came time to celebrate his wife Cecelia’s 54th birthday the following month. Dougherty submitted the $1,900 bash at Café Martorano at Harrah’s Resort — complete with $14 Grey Goose martinis, entrées of veal and penne alla vodka and multiple glasses of wine — on his expense report, calling it a meeting with IBEW leaders.

But prosecutors on Thursday showed jurors tweets from Dougherty’s niece — Maureen T. Fiocca, a part-time summer employee of the union — commemorating the event with photos of the cocktails she quaffed under a caption of “Yo cuz.”

Crawford, who was charged alongside Dougherty and five other union officials and allies in 2019 with embezzling more than $600,000 from Local 98′s coffers, pleaded guilty last year to her role in the alleged thefts, including the May 2015 Borgata birthday celebration.

Dougherty opted to challenge the charges in court.

Since the start of the trial, his lawyer, Greg Pagano, has characterized any personal purchases that found their way on to Dougherty’s expense reports as inadvertent mistakes — the result of the ex-union chief’s habit of squeezing in family shopping and functions around work he was constantly doing for Local 98.

For instance, the same day as Crawford’s July 2 birthday party in Atlantic City, Dougherty had hosted an outing for several Local 98 employees at the Seaview Golf Club in Galloway Township, Pagano noted while cross-examining IRS Special Agent Laura Capra about the dinners Thursday.

“Sometimes he mixes business with personal events,” the defense lawyer said.

» READ MORE: John Dougherty's Trial: Catch up on what's happened so far

He noted the guest list for all three parties in 2015 blurred those lines, including not only friends and family but also Local 98 employees and allies and pointed, in particular, to a recording of one wiretapped phone call between Dougherty and Crawford a few days before her Old Homestead celebration.

“We’re having a birthday party for you,” Dougherty told her. “We made up a list, you know, and it’s all the people that helped us with our election stuff.”

One attendee — Local 98 electrician Bruce Bennett Jr., who testified later in the day — said he didn’t even know the dinner was in honor of Crawford’s birthday, despite describing himself as one of her close friends.

The food, though, he added was “very good.”

Bennett was at the center of another scheme prosecutors have charged in their indictment of Dougherty. In May 2016, he helped renovate the garage of Crawford’s South Philadelphia home. She later presented him with a Local 98 check for $1,500, he said. But he told jurors Thursday he never specifically asked her what it was for.

Pagano seized on the check’s memo line, noting that it read “gratis work for Local 98.” The union electrician explained that phrase was often used by the union to describe projects its members undertook as lower cost or for free on behalf of charitable causes of community groups.

Perhaps the $1,500 payment wasn’t for renovating Crawford’s garage, Pagano mused, but rather a Northeast Philadelphia synagogue Bennett had scoped out that same year for a potential “gratis” job.

Bennett later acknowledged, however, under questioning from prosecutors, that he never ended up doing any work at the worship site.

Despite all the talk Thursday of big-ticket expenditures like home renovations and pricey restaurant meals, prosecutors say most of the times Dougherty misspent union money it came in the form of purchases for household goods or everyday meals he bought on his union card for himself or his family.

Capra, the IRS agent, walked jurors through some of those expenses Thursday, including $135 Dougherty allegedly rang up during one February 2014 trip to Target. On his receipt? Bananas, a toothbrush and mouthwash, personal hygiene products, candles, and “condoms (10-count),” she said.

Dougherty later sought reimbursement from the union, classifying the purchases as “work supplies.”

» READ MORE: Johnny Doc is accused of spending thousands on his friends and family with Local 98 money. Here’s what prosecutors say he bought.

He didn’t even attend a 2016 dinner at Butcher and Singer steak house in Center City for which he caused the union to foot the bill, Capra said. Wiretapped phone calls revealed the multicourse meal — complete with 9-ounce filets, wine, and Baked Alaska and apple crumble for dessert — was for the labor leader’s wife and sister.

Dougherty showed up only to pick up the $216 check, Capra said, which he later expensed as a “political meeting.”

The union also reimbursed Dougherty in 2015 for a $122 tab at Famous Dave’s barbecue in South Philadelphia.

His expense report listed the meal as a meeting “re: Local 98[’s] salting program,” a reference to the union practice of “salting” by which labor organizers seek to foment union activity in nonunion shops.

But as prosecutors told it as they closed out the day’s testimony, the only salting going on at that meal — attended by Dougherty, his wife, and her parents — was happening in the Famous Dave’s kitchen.

Testimony in the case is expected to resume Monday.